Speed Dating: Where’s all the Sausage?

My love life has been bordering on the slightly tragic side of late. It’s about as stale as the packet of discarded Adam’s Place chips I found at the bottom of my bed the evening after the night before (true story – maybe this is why I am single). I thought I should do something about it. I’ve never really ‘dated’ anybody before, so the way I look at it, it will quickly bump up my date-tally from 0 to about 20.

There are a few things I’ve told myself that I am NOT, under any circumstances, allowed to talk about during the three awkward minutes on my multiple dates. The main one is how much I love my golden retriever. During Freshers’ week, my flatmate thought my dog was dead because I’d created some kind of creepy dog-shrine. Way more photos of him than of my family and friends. This is why I am not allowed to mention my dog.

Cuter than any guy I’ve ever met

The night started off well enough. My housemate and I had a bottle of wine between us for courage. When we walked past the Sausage, it was relatively empty so we went for a pointless excursion to the end of Bristol road and back.

Still no more people had arrived. Considering Selly Sausage had tweeted the day before: “Last few remaining Speed Dating tickets available for tomorrow! We currently have a couple more guys than girls so ladies…where are ye?” I was feeling rather optimistic. These were good odds! Wrong.

Apparently the tweet had resulted in too many ladies getting their hopes up and imagining a swarm of eligible bachelors turning up to woo them at the Sausage. No such thing happened, I’m afraid.

The klaxon sounded, and Ben* was my first date. Quite a pretty boy, but when he told to me within the first few moments he was only 18, I was instantly turned off. Unfortunate, but he was too young for me.

Ben also asked, when I expressed my liking for Subway City, “so… you do drugs then?”. I gave him a 2/10. I do acknowledge this was too harsh given the other ‘competition’. The Selly Sausage owner later told Ben about my harsh marking and he bumped me down to a 3! The cheek.

Sorry Fresher. I’ve had a gap yah and everything y’know

My second date seemed to have been rehearsing questions and responses all day long. After the mundane, tiresome questions had run out it was just plain awkward. I gave him a 3/10.

Awkward? No, never!

The next date was with a third year Chemistry student with a soft spot for cats and no experience whatsoever of Fab. Alright, I’m not Fab’s biggest fan but at least I’ve experienced/endured it.

I’m disappointed the awkwardness got to the point where I actually had to bring up the subject of pets. Thus, I broke my own non-dog rule. To fill the silence, I even said, “I want to bring him to uni, but I don’t think I’m allowed.” Tragic on my part. 3/10.

There were just too many girls, which resulted in me sitting in booth by myself.

Twas a lonely 3 minutes.

After this evening, my love life seems just as, if not more, tragic than it ever was before. I’m glad I tried speed dating, but I don’t think I’ll be going again any time soon. It’s quite awkward and tiresome after a while.

Things are looking bleak. But no matter how bleak it gets, I still refuse to join Plenty of Fish.

a snippet of my score sheet.

*Ben is not his real name.